And this part of the speech is another reason why Obama was a strong campaigner. He ascends to Olympian heights from “our politics” and heaps aspersions on it, casting himself as a high-minded arbiter of events from his removed vantage. It is also what hurt him as an executive because he could not similarly distance himself from the workings of the federal government over which he presided, though he often tried.
Tim Walz’s authentic flannel shirts have been “through some stuff,” Obama alleges. Right. Presumably yard work. But if you’ve never handled a string trimmer, that can sound intimidating.
The Harris campaign will be fine on Election Day if they just have the Obamas do the rest of their campaigning for them until November.
This passage from Obama’s speech distills why he was such a potent political force: “For all the rallies and the memes, this will still be a tight race in a closely divided country. A country where too many Americans are still struggling. Where a lot of Americans don’t believe government can help. And as we gather here tonight, the people who will decide this election are asking a very simple question: who will fight for me?” The superficial willingness to approximate sympathy for the concerns of swing voters as he restates their views in a way they would recognizable, if only to swat those concerns aside, is disarming.
“History will remember Joe Biden as an outstanding president who defended Democracy at a moment of great danger.” – Barack Obama
As Michelle Obama wraps up and Barack Obama is about to take the stage, it’s important to remember that as skilled as they both are as political performers, that skill has never translated to other Democrats when Obama was not on the ballot. Throughout his presidency, Obama campaigned for Democrats who went on to lose. In 2010 and 2014, he suffered historically bad midterms. In 2016, he was never able to get his coalition to turn out for Hillary Clinton to beat Trump. Michelle may be firing up the crowd now, an I’m sure her husband will do the same. But he is not on the ballot this November.
Michelle Obama advises Democratic voters to not “complain” if they are not directly contacted by the Harris campaign as part of their get-out-the-vote efforts. She adds that there is “no time” for that “foolishness.” This is an innovative way of papering over a bad GOTV strategy.
In what has to be the most ridiculous line of the night, Michelle Obama attacked the “affirmative action of generational wealth.” The idea that accumulating material wealth and bequeathing it to your offspring with the hope that they build on it and do the same for their children is one of the fundaments of the American social compact. Trying to make that sense of industry into a source of shame is absurd. No one who thought two seconds about it would endorse that line, which perhaps explains why the crowd in Chicago erupted in response to it. This isn’t a nominating convention anymore. It’s a revival.
Kamala Harris is “one of the most qualified people ever to seek the office of the presidency,” Michelle Obama alleges.
Michelle Obama has made clear, many times, that she has no interest in running for public office. She does not sound like she particularly enjoyed being the wife of a candidate, and it sounds like she never looked at what her husband Barack was doing — fundraising, schmoozing — and thought, “oh, that looks like a fun, worthwhile and productive use of my time.” Nonetheless, every now and then, someone implausibly claims that Michelle Obama will parachute in and become the Democrats’ presidential nominee.
Republicans are lucky that Michelle Obama is so allergic to the indignities of the modern campaign process. Because as the rapturous response at the United Center demonstrates, Democrats absolutely love her, would probably quickly unite behind her, and walk barefoot over broken glass to elect her.